THE RULE OF THE MONKS.
(4th and 5th Cents.)
Theophilus.
Cyril.
Dioscurus.
After the exploits of Athanasius the Patriarchate of Alexandria became very powerful. In theory Egypt belonged to the Emperor, who sent a Prefect and a garrison from Constantinople; in practise it was ruled by the Patriarch and his army of monks. The monks had not been important so long as each lived alone, but by the 4th cent., they had gathered into formidable communities, whence they would occasionally make raids on civilisation like the Bedouins to-day. One of these communities was only nine miles from Alexandria (the “Ennaton”), others lay further west, in the Mariout desert; of those in the Wady Natrun, remnants still survive. The monks had some knowledge of theology and of decorative craft, but they were averse to culture and incapable of thought. Their heroes were St. Ammon who deserted his wife on their wedding eve, or St. Antony, who thought bathing sinful and was consequently carried across the canals of the delta by an angel. From the ranks of such men the Patriarchs were recruited.
Christianity, which had been made official at the beginning of the 4th century, was made compulsory towards its close, and this gave the monks the opportunity of attacking the worship of Serapis. Much had now taken refuge in that ancient Ptolemaic shrine—philosophy, magic, learning, licentiousness. The Patriarch Theophilus led the attack. The Serapis temple at Canopus (Aboukir) fell in 389, the parent temple at Alexandria two years later; great was the fall of the latter, for it involved the destruction of the Library whose books had been stored in the cloisters surrounding the buildings; a monastery was installed on the site. The persecution of the pagans continued, and culminated in the murder of Hypatia (415). The achievements of Hypatia, like her youthfulness, have been exaggerated; she was a middle-aged lady who taught mathematics at the Mouseion and though she was a philosopher too we have no record of her doctrines. The monks were now supreme, and one of them had murdered the Imperial Prefect, and had been canonised for the deed by the Patriarch Cyril. Cyril’s wild black army filled the streets, “human only in their faces,” and anxious to perform some crowning piety before they retired to their monasteries. In this mood they encountered Hypatia who was driving from a lecture (probably along the course of the present Rue Nebi Daniel), dragged her from the carriage to the Caesareum, and there tore her to pieces with tiles. She is not a great figure. But with her the Greece that is a spirit expired—the Greece that tried to discover truth and create beauty and that had created Alexandria.
The monks however, have another aspect. They were the nucleus of a national movement. Nationality did not exist in the modern sense—it was a religious not a patriotic age. But under the cloak of religion racial passions could shelter, and the monks killed Hypatia not only because they knew she was sinful but also because they thought she was foreign. They were anti-Greek, and later on they and their lay adherents were given the name of Copts. “Copt” means “Egyptian.” The language of the Copts was derived from the ancient Egyptian, their script was Greek, with the addition of six letters adapted from the hieroglyphs. The new movement permeated the whole country, even cosmopolitan Alexandria, and as soon as it found a theological formula in which to express itself, a revolt against Constantinople broke out.
That formula is known as “Monophysism.” Its theological import—it concerns the Nature of Christ—is discussed below (p. [76]); here we are concerned with its outward effects. The Patriarch Dioscurus, successor and nephew to Cyril, is the first Monophysite hero and the real founder of the Coptic Church. The Emperor took up a high and mighty line, and at the Council of Chalcedon near Constantinople Dioscurus was exiled and his doctrines condemned (451). From that moment no Greek was safe in Egypt. The racial trouble, which had been averted by the Ptolemies, broke out at last and has not even died down to-day. Before long Alexandria was saddled with two Patriarchs. There was (i) The Orthodox or “Royal” Patriarch, who upheld the decrees of Chalcedon. He was appointed by the Emperor and had most of the Church revenues. But he had no spiritual authority over the Egyptians; to them he was an odious Greek official, disguised as a priest. (ii) The Monophysite or Coptic Patriarch, who opposed Chalcedon—a regular Egyptian monk, poor, bigoted and popular. Each of these Patriarchs claimed to represent St. Mark and the only true church; each of them is represented by a Patriarch in Alexandria to-day. Now and then an Emperor tried to heal the schism, and made concessions to the Egyptian faith. But the schism was racial, the concessions theological, so nothing was effected. Egypt was only held for the Empire by Greek garrisons, and consequently when the Arabs came they conquered her at once.
Tombstones from the Ennaton: Museum, Room 1.
Wady Natrun: p. [200].